Red Hand of Doom

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Six Donkey Show and the Red Hand of Doom

The Beginning

Meeting up at The Pink Unicorn through a somewhat chance encounter, the professional scoundrel Danton Ap-Rickard has come into possession of a map detailing the whereabouts of a vault said to contain the treasure of the fallen House of Vraath, but he lacks the muscle necessary to seek it by himself. A need for stalwart companions (hopefully willing to work on the cheap) has brought him to The Pink Unicorn on this day, and it seems that Olidammara has seen fit to smile upon him.

Hailing from the frigid forests of Chuva Norte, the Amazonian princess Penthesilea of the Amazons and the elven druid N’cole are the first two adventurers to join his enterprise. Penthesilea of the Amazons (aka Penny) is searching for the Jewel of Artemis, a legendary treasure stolen from her mother during the destruction of their tribe. Her companion N’cole has persuaded Penny to journey to Elsir Vale to seek an audience with the Keepers of Eth, in the hopes that the druidic circle of Witchwood may have some news of the Jewel’s current location. As Danton is already heading to the Witchwood (for the ruins of Vraath Keep lie within its borders), the two warrior women consent to join forces with him.

Joining this trio is the dwarven wizard Schnoggy Boggins of the Clan Boggins. Within the smokey confines of The Pink Unicorn, Master Boggins may have discovered something even better than a numbing salve for his affliction, for in the barbarian princess of Chuva Norte, Master Boggins feels he has at last met a woman capable of bearing the awful force of his insatiable lust. Schnoggy Boggins, this being his first adventure with a company of men, agrees to lease space in the brigand Danton’s bag of holding for 500 Gold pieces. Only later does Schnoggy Boggins begin to realize that such an agreement with Danton would rely on the character being reliable as a teammate, and not a pigfucker.

Rounding out our company of intrepid heroes (as the members of Six Donkey Show hold that “the Sixth Man” in their entourage is none other than the legendary battle bard Rick Astley himself) is Rasheed El-Saleh, a human cleric in service to the dwarven god, Moradin. He travels now with Six Donkey Show ostensibly to aid its dwarven wizard and to spread the glory of Moradin (blessed be his name). El-Saleh was the dwarven name given to Rasheed long ago, and roughly translates to the human tongue as “to do absolutely nothing”.

Jumped in the Woods

Following Danton’s map through the woods the intrepid Six Donkey Show is jumped by a gang of marauders, nefariously working from a nearby barn. Danton sneakily creaps into the underbrush, blades in hand, to deal underhanded death as only he can. In an attempt to woo Penthesilea of the Amazons’s warrior heart, pumping under her ample warrior bossom, Schoggy destroys half of the initial cadre with an enormous fireball from the heavens…singing bandit, tree, bush, squirrel, and rabbit alike…all to N’cole’s utter horror causing her to weep, and issue forth a useless fog.

Rasheed does nothing.

During this battle Master Boggins first employs what he hopes to be a long-term strategy to woo the warrior heart, embedded deep below the heaving, sweaty warrior bosom of Penny the Goblin Clobberer. In the midst of deep battle, Penny hears a disembodied voice. Familiar, yet unfamiliar. It encourages her. Tells her to fight on. “Trust your feelings. You hold a sword incredibly well, your swing swift…your blows hard.” It tells her, “I looovvvveee yooouuuuu…..” as it trails into the middle distance and the sounds of battle recommence.

Penny knows not where this voice comes. She fights on, as Master Boggins nods knowingly, self-assured in his plan.

N’Cole unleashes her giant lions, while her pet panda sits in the fog. Her lions, Pinky and Nodrick, fight well to the end. After destroying several henchmen, Nodrick lays at N’Cole’s feet, breathing haltingly through blood matted fur. N’Cole, through teared eyes, says, “Nodrick, I just want to tell you one last thing before you die…I’m awesome.”

After the attack Danton sneaks over to a body, snatches several hundred gold and pockets it for himself, stashing it in his bag-of-holding. Master Boggins is intelligent enough to know to suspect the rogue, and intelligent enough to know others should suspect a rogue as well. However, he does not have enough charisma to figure out what Danton is up to, nor warn anyone else. Nor does anybody else in Six Donkey Show suspect a rogue would ever do anything roguish. Suffice it to say Master Boggins thinks Danton is a pigfucker.

After capturing an enemy cleric, N’cole and Rasheed proclaim while it is okay to murder the bandits in self-defense (rather than attempting to run), it is all too much to threaten one with death and need to go outside and scour the countryside for fieldmice while everybody else performs the interrogation. Of course, much to Schnoggy Boggins’ dismay he discovers that while he is intelligent enough to formulate questions, he can neither pose them to the detainee nor impart them to his mute colleagues, who are all too happy to debate the best way of tickling the information out of the stubborn cleric.

Six Donkey Show eventually finds out that they are facing the dread horde of the Kulkor Zhul, spreading from the West. They also find out that the Red Hand of Doom are about to invade the entire valley and that Drellins Ferry is first. And with victory comes many more questions. Have the enemy already built up blockades and ambush-sites around the Misty Vale? Where is the enemy army located? Are they near? How much time do the heroes have to prepare for war? Where is Vraath Keep? And the horde is coming…

To Drellin´s Ferry

Once finished of their wicked work in the woods, Six Donkey Show make their way to Drellin´s Ferry to spread word, where Schnoggy Boggins attempts once again to whisper sweet magical nothings to Penny and N’Cole, to no avail. After questioning the guardsmen, and giving words of warning to Norro Wiston, Town Speaker and lead security lady Soranna the Guard Captain (whom Master Boggins attempts to woo as she appears to be of stout nature), they are told to make their way to an old man in the woods, who can lead them to where they need to go.

Flee, Fatass, Flee!

Making their way west to this old man in the woods, Six Donkey Show comes upon a giant hydra. N’cole states she would never want to hurt such a beautiful creature, convincing her intrepid friends that the best thing to do is to flee. N’cole scampers ‘to and ‘fro, drawing the ire of the fell multi-headed beast, whispering all along how beautiful a creature it is while the motley adventurers make their way past.

When N’cole finally catches up, she informs the party that she named it ‘Henry’ and if given the chance it probably wouldn’t have hurt anybody, “He was just afraid.”

Who Wants to Sleep With the Grumpy Old Man?

Upon reaching the old man’s house, the old man tells them of a castle to the west. Nothing much memorable happens, and the team takes a nap. After a seemingly endless debate with Rasheed, N’cole turns into an eagle and scouts the castle.

The Ghost in the Vraath Keep

Six Donkey Show makes their way, ever so slowly up the castle wall. Once at the top of the wall, when the band of adventurers are prepared to make their attack, Danton states that he has to go, and disappears, confirming to Master Boggins that he is indeed a pigfucker.

N’cole’s pet dogs (Larry, Moe, and Curly), Master Boggins, and Penny, have a couple minutes to unleash hell upon a couple minions named overheard playing a game of goblin uno and some wargs before Six Donkey Show’s worst enemies attack. Master Boggins fireballs them to near obsolescence, Penny gives one a smack, and N’coles pets gives a bite or two.

Then hell is unleashed upon Six Donkey Show , as N’cole proceeds to turn the entire inside of the castle into a bog, complete with entangling vines and fog as thick as London pea soup. Rasheed, in one of two actions he will perform in his entire existence (his other being an incessant droning chant maintained throughout the entire adventure), adds his own fog to the mix to complete the damnable concoction.

Gagging on the chocking mist, the intrepid adventurers devolve into fits of battle, hollering to each other, “he’s over here!” and throwing random balls of fire into rooms, hoping to corner their enemies with flaming destruction, while they themselves feel their way along walls and swing blindly at unseen enemies.

Staggering blindly atop a wall, Master Boggins plays a mournful, magical tune upon his Mystical Boggins Battle Bagpipe, in the hope of detecting ill magics in the mist. Indeed, as you have heard before and will hear again, the Boggins Battle Bags yield powerful fruit and awesome portent, detecting fell magics all around, particularly in several different rooms below. Brave and beautiful Penny finds her way along the wall, approaching the room out of the mist like an angel from the clouds of heaven itself, or so Master Boggins would imagine. Master Boggins, always one to enjoy a little chaos while assisting a maiden in her endeavor, fires a well-placed fireball in the room, which careens about randomly causing destruction wherever it hits. Disgorging the biggest bat ever seen upon a newly christened interior wetland, N’Cole can only listen as her proud beast Shemp stands in the doorway stalwart against a rather large, magical Bugbear sorcerer’s mad-attempt to crash over it in an attempt to flee from the now burning room. Failing miserably, the Bugbear sorcerer, presumed to be the master of Vraath Keep, falls backward, with a look of stunned admiration upon his face, as if acknowledging to one and all that indeed this is the biggest fucking bat he has ever laid eyes upon, and it is just and proper that he should be knocked back into Master Boggins’ burning flame for such a desperate attempt.